firmly ambivalent

...staying a safe distance back at all times...

Friday, May 04, 2007

Three whole months, well, nearly...

An embarrassment to be absent for so long, though no one is keeping track. I happened upon an installation in a local gallery this past weekend, the crux of which is an old fashioned typewriter that is to be used by gallery goers to provide accounts of 'stories of invisibility'. Too timid to start typing then and there, and too hard pressed to come up with anything at all momentous, I refrained. But here is an example if not quite a story of invisibility: the web journal that nobody ever reads except for known unknowns, if that. There are, however, daily stories of invisibility, though none are of much interest. I am invisible at this very moment, though this information in and of itself is of very little consequence. Stories of invisibility seem to balance themselves with stories of visibility. Sometimes when I am unwillingly visible I long to be invisible, so we cannot always denote invisibility as a negative circumstance. For example, when I am working and come upon the realization that I alone am responsible for things no one else wants to be or can be responsible for, I feel more uncomfortably visible. Even if I try to be invisible, it is all for nought: I am sought out and pulled back into the realm of visibility. I often feel that my countenance is at complete odds with the environment. I do not belong there, can nobody see that? Or can they see it and are just too polite not to mention my overt physical displacement? This is, alas, all in my mind. I do not appear out of place. My visibility is expected, and the longer I stay, the more visible I become, almost like an image being burned into a pixelated screen. Even as I type this, I'm burning pixels into the screen. I leave a trail of pixels behind no matter what I do. I'm ensuring that my visibility is duly noted, though no one in particular is taking note.